Making a Switch. Lessons in Leadership

Bear Bryant took over a dead Alabama football program when he came in took the reigns as Head Coach. Taking over a program that was 4-24-2 from 1955-1957 would prove to be no easy task, but Bryant got to work with a vision of developing a winning program. His first season with a team that he inherited that many historians deemed as “incapable of winning 2 games in conference play” ended up with a 5-4-1 record. The next two years showed a drastic improvement in their ability to win football games, and by the 1961 season, Bryant had the Alabama Crimson Tide playing for (and winning) a national championship. Bryant would lead his team Alabama Crimson Tide to an incredible streak of great seasons in 1964, 1965, and 1966 in which they won two more National Championships and finish 3rd despite an undefeated season. Bryant led the Tide out of the 1960’s with the nations best record in college football at 90-16-4.

But success was also accompanied with struggle. Coming into the 70’s, Bryant’s team was struggling to find it’s way back to the top. In an interview with a local reporter, Bryant stated “..I knew we could not win with what we had, doing what we were doing. We had to make a switch.” A good coach and a good leader knows that changes need to be made in order to keep winning. And that is what this blog series is all about: Identifying our weaknesses and making a switch.”

In this series, I want to focus on two areas: Environments and Leadership Culture.

Before we dig into the blog posts, we’re going to start this one out with a simple poll.